The new year has been difficult for the Iranian regime. Most recently, an Iranian oil tanker (flagged as Panamanian) collided with another boat off the coast of China and burned for a week, killing the crew and raising questions in Iran about the regime’s competence and accountability.
The disaster came days after a series of major protests related to similar questions swept across the country in early January, bringing tens of thousands into the streets. Observers were quick to draw analogies to the Green Movement of 2009, when hundreds of thousands of young Iranians protested the election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president — an election widely viewed as rigged.
But this moment is different in a number of ways, most notably in terms of who was protesting, what they were protesting, and where, why, and how they were protesting it. While the demonstrations lasted only around 10 days, by most accounts the Iranian political system is shaken — albeit far from any kind of collapse. For the foreseeable future, this moment will serve as a point of debate about Iran’s political undercurrents and the future of the country’s politics and institutions.
Iran is no stranger to public demonstrations. Since the revolution in 1979, minor and major protests have occurred sporadically. But an important point to consider is who was on the streets this time, in contrast to past demonstrations. This movement has been mainly driven by a young, rural population of lower socioeconomic status — Iranians who have, for the most part, been generally portrayed as conservative, religious and pro-regime. Indeed, conservative components of the regime may have planned the initial protests in Mashhad in an attempt to undermine Hassan Rouhani, Iran’s centrist president. In contrast, the Green Movement was driven by more educated, urban and middle-class Iranians, largely in Tehran.
These protests were also remarkably decentralized. Like many of its neighbors, Iran’s government has been adept at stifling traditional channels of political mobilization (political groups, labor unions, independent associations, etc.). Protests in Iran are usually focused on specific issues and led by a political faction within the regime and the face of that political faction. This time, however, it seems that public demonstrations were not driven by any single figure, organization, or issue. Instead, the 2018 protests appear to be a largely grassroots backlash against an array of economic and institutional grievances.
Also important is where the protests occurred: in 29 of 31 provinces across Iran, in nearly 80 small, provincial towns that are generally apolitical and/or conservative. The larger cities of Qom, Mashhad and Isfahan, viewed by many as historically conservative and supportive of the regime, were also epicenters of protest. The speed at which the protests spread and their breadth — encompassing areas that have traditionally not been political hotbeds — is significant.
The reasons why these protests occurred are, to some degree, contested and diverse. The drivers of the protests seem to have been largely economic, particularly high unemployment, rising prices, low wages, overdue pensions, and murky economic systems in which institutions tied to the regime have proven exceptionally profitable. Corruption and fraud became central to these grievances, but other economic issues, such as the environment were also important, particularly in Khuzestan and Isfahan, where water scarcity and pollution have become hot-button issues.
The economic driver is also tied to when these protests occurred: two weeks after Rouhani released his budget for 2018, which reduces cash transfers to the poor and cuts subsidies for fuel and other key consumer goods. Despite efforts to improve Iran’s business climate, the Iranian economy has not greatly improved following the P5+1 agreement, as many foreign companies remain hesitant to invest in Iran — in part due to a poor business climate, and also due to concerns that President Donald Trump might leave the agreement and reimpose sanctions on Iran and companies dealing with Iran.
The most important factor differentiating the 2018 protests is what the protesters were demonstrating against — the regime itself — and how they were doing it. In Iran’s factional political system, protests have almost always been driven by competition among factions within the regime. They have virtually never represented serious, wholesale opposition against the Islamic-revolutionary institutions themselves, which were established in 1979.
The 2018 protests were different, escalating from the airing of economic grievances to explicitly challenging the regime in its entirety — Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, President Rouhani, and the Islamic Republic itself. Chants included “Leave, leave, Khamenei,” “Reformers, pragmatists: your time is up,” “Death to Khamenei,” “This is our last message: the system is our target,” “We either die, or take back our country,” “Leave Syria, act for your own people,” “No to Gaza, no to Lebanon, we only die for Iran,” “We do not want the Islamic Republic,” and “We did the Revolution — what a mistake we made.” Some chants even evoked the overthrown monarchy, such as “Reza Shah, rest in peace” and “Iran without the Shah has no value.”
While chants against the regime are inherently political, one can plausibly argue that the 2018 protests were not a democratic movement in the same vein as the Green Movement. Instead, they were a backlash against a monolithic regime that, to working-class people across Iran, has not delivered economically as a result of corruption, mismanagement and incompetence. The oil tanker disaster, which was widely covered in Iran, was just one more failure by the regime in this regard.
Looking ahead
The implications of these protests for the weeks and months ahead are unknown. Each side of the regime — the conservatives aligned with Khamenei and the centrists aligned with Rouhani — are now maneuvering to protect themselves, to use the protests to their advantage and to delegitimize their opponents.
Rouhani has sought to spin the protests as an opportunity for reform and a rejection of conservative restrictions: “I believe what has happened in the past few days is an opportunity despite it looking like a threat. We have to find out the problem,” he declared. “People have not come to the street for merely economic problems. They are not just asking for bread and water.” Boldly, Rouhani went even further, attributing the protests to the clerical regime’s restrictive policies on personal conduct: “We cannot pick a lifestyle and tell two generations after us to live like that. It is impossible… The views of the young generation about life and the world is different than ours.” It should be said, however, that without the support of Iran’s reformist class, and under attack from the right, Rouhani’s future looks challenging.
Meanwhile, Iran’s conservatives, led by Khamenei, have sought to spin the protests as a foreign conspiracy: “Look at the recent days’ incidents … All those who are at odds with the Islamic Republic have utilized various means, including money, weapons, politics and [the] intelligence apparatus, to create problems for the Islamic system, the Islamic Republic and the Islamic Revolution.” Soon after the protests were dispersed, however, Khamenei’s faction was faced with another political crisis in the form of the sudden revelation of a 1989 video of Khamenei declaring himself unfit for the role of Supreme Leader.
It is too soon to say what might emerge from this moment in Iran. Thus far, no leaders or manifestos have emerged to articulate the movement’s goals. It is also too soon to say how this event may affect Iran’s regional posture or its relationship with the United States. Trump and U.S. policymakers have voiced support for the protesters and ridiculed the regime’s domestic and foreign record, in addition to imposing new sanctions on the regime. But it is difficult to see how this backlash from the public rooted in economic factors might affect Iran’s regional policy, as the country’s sponsorship of Hezbollah, Hamas, Bashar al-Assad and proxy groups across the region has become a valuable security resource and deterrent — and has proven to be far more valued by the regime than any economic breathing room reduced sanctions might provide. If anything, the conservative elements that control Iran’s security policy may seek to reinforce these strategies and heighten rhetoric about foreign threats to Iran’s security from the United States, Saudi Arabia or Israel.
Robert Barron is the policy assistant to Ambassador Edward Djerejian, the director of the Baker Institute. Barron also helps to coordinate the activities of the institute’s Center for the Middle East. He previously lived and worked in Cairo as a journalist covering the energy industry and other business news for Mada Masr, an independent online newspaper. Barron graduated from Texas A&M’s Bush School of Government with a master’s degree in Middle East affairs and international development.